The Daily Telegraph

Carrier captain wants 10,000 more recruits

- By Jamie Merrill

The captain of Britain’s newest aircraft carrier wants the Royal Navy to recruit an extra 10,000 sailors to bring the fleet up to strength. With more than 32,000 personnel making up the full-time strength of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, Captain Jerry Kyd, the commander of HMS Queen Elizabeth, said retention and recruitmen­t were a “constant battle” for senior officers. Captain Kyd said: “You have to have a strategy which balances your ends, ways and means. It would be lovely if we had another 10,000 people in the Navy.”

THE captain of Britain’s new aircraft carrier has said he would like to see the Royal Navy recruit an extra 10,000 new sailors to bring the fleet up to strength.

With more than 32,000 personnel making up the full-time strength of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, Captain Jerry Kyd, the commander of aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Royal Navy’s largest and most powerful warship, said retention and recruitmen­t were a “constant battle” for senior officers. Speaking after Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, visited the carrier during its week-long visit to New York, Captain Kyd said it would be “lovely” to increase the size of the Royal Navy by 10,000 sailors over the coming years.

“This again is why we are looking at innovative manning,” he said. “It is a constant battle – you have to have a strategy which balances your ends, ways and means.

“It would be lovely if we had another 10,000 people in the Navy … we are OK, we are balanced, we are getting back into balance.” His comments, which come as he hands over command of HMS Queen Elizabeth on Wednesday, follow new figures from the Ministry of Defence which revealed that a lack of sailors has meant four British warships have not spent a day at sea in 2018.

Responding to a parliament­ary question last week, the MOD released figuring showing a drop in activity for the Royal Navy’s fleet of Type 23 frigates due to ageing hulls and undermanni­ng.

A National Audit Office report in April showed that the Royal Navy suffered a manpower shortage of 16 per cent in 2016-17.

Captain Kyd said the biggest challenge for the Royal Navy “is making sure there is balance across different branches” of the force, as it adds new vessels to the fleet and adapts to new challenges.

He said: “It is not numbers as such, it is the right quality of people in the right numbers in the right areas.”

Captain Kyd also revealed that HMS Prince of Wales, the sister ship of HMS Queen Elizabeth, was “on the gradual build-up” with more than 500 personnel forming the ship’s company so far.

With HMS Queen Elizabeth due to enter operationa­l service in 2021, he said the combinatio­n of aircraft carriers, cutting-edge jets, Type 45 destroyers and Astute class submarines would probably mean it was the “most potent a military task group we will have put together since 1982”. He added: “It is a strategic and political tool … it is all about deterrence.”

Speaking on a visit to the ship on Saturday, Mr Williamson said the warship was a “clear sign and clear demonstrat­ion” of Britain’s capability.

“It is quite obvious to me that she is going to be an enormous asset to the Royal Navy, and really is an outward sign of rebirth of the Royal Navy, and actually a much more global Navy,” he said.

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